Shop quickly before the shops have to close again – that’s what many people in Austria thought on Saturday, the last shopping day before the new Corona lockdown. There was a lot of activity, especially in the country’s shopping centers. The rush was strong in Upper Austria, where the lockdown will take longer than in the rest of Austria. Commercial chairman Rainer Trefelik spoke of an “above average Saturday”, but nothing more.
“The frequencies were good, comparable to a Christmas Saturday,” said Trefelik in an interview with the APA. However, there was still no euphoria in retail because the sales could not catch up with a three-week lockdown. The picture is also differentiated depending on the location, so secondary locations were by no means stormed.
The rush was particularly strong in Upper Austria, as an APA on-site inspection shows. In Linz there were an extremely large number of passers-by on Landstrasse – the shopping street in the city center. Some shops were bursting at the seams, so that getting through to the back of a bookseller seemed more or less impossible. Correspondingly long queues formed in front of the cash registers. Christmas decorations in particular were in demand, and clearance sales with 50 percent discounts on angels, Christmas tree balls and the like were tempting. In the shopping centers in Linz, however, there was no more going on than on other Saturdays.
No huge rush in Salzburg
In the Europark shopping center in Salzburg, center manager Manuel Mayer registered good customer frequency for a Saturday in November, but there was no huge rush to the shops, as he described in an APA conversation. Many people would have used the opportunity to buy Christmas presents in brick-and-mortar stores. The toy and electronics retailers in particular were well frequented. Since Black Friday with reduced prices in the next week will be canceled due to the corona, numerous retailers today offered discounts of up to 20 percent.
There were also more people out and about in downtown Vienna than on other Saturdays. Graben, Stephansplatz and Rotenturmstraße were pretty full in the early afternoon, the street cafes and ice cream parlors with outdoor dining areas were very busy. Despite the announced anti-corona measures demo, many used the last business day before the lockdown for errands, many had shopping bags with them, and perfumery and clothing items were particularly in demand.
In the Auhofcenter in the west of Vienna it felt like there was more going on than on other Saturdays. At a shoe chain, for example, several parents tried on winter shoes with their children in order to be prepared in the event of the onset of winter during the lockdown. In other shops, too, targeted errands and early Christmas shopping were in the foreground. Some fashion chains advertised high discounts.
Run on shopping malls
Cars were not only jammed in the Aufhofcenter, but also at the Stadlau business park and at the entrance to Austria’s largest shopping center, the Shopping City Süd in Vösendorf, traffic stalled at lunchtime. There was also a lot going on at the retail parks in Eisenstadt, but not a huge rush. In Klagenfurt, parking spaces in front of a large furniture store were already in short supply at around 11 a.m., and customer frequency was also high in the nearby toy store, as was the case with a sporting goods retailer. The same picture at an electronics store, there was almost as much going on as on a shopping Saturday in December.
In contrast to the shopping centers on the outskirts, the city center of Graz was relaxed. “I literally escaped into town by public transport after I saw the traffic at the parking lot of the shopping center there in Liebenau. It’s so relaxed here, and I’ve already got a few gifts. You learn from lockdowns,” said a lady at Jakominiplatz to the APA. The city department store Kastner & Öhler was well attended, but there was no noticeable crush of gift buyers before the three weeks of forced closing time.
In western Austria, the upcoming lockdown on Monday has also led to a high frequency of shopping centers. For example, Vorarlberg’s largest shopping center – the Messepark in Dornbirn – was well attended from the start, in Innsbruck’s DEZ the day started “with a good frequency” – a further increase was expected in the afternoon. “You can feel that there will be lockdown again from Monday,” said Messepark managing director Burkhard Dünser. He spoke to the APA of a “very strong day”. (apa)
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